HOW TO Install a zipper in knitted garments

Today, I want to show you how I installed the zipper in the Vintersol sweater.

First, you need to be clear where exactly your zipper should be. I wanted mine to be diagonal between the two halves of the neckline and hood. (not in the picture, they were still blocking at this time ;) )

Well, after sewing them onto the sweater, I tried again before I started. ;)












Now, you want to prepare the zipper by adding some stiches that you can use to sew the zipper onto the sweater. You should not sew the zipper directly to your garment (like you do in traditional sewing with clothes made of fabric).

Step 1:

For this step, you have two options:

Option 1:

If you are a perfectionist or want your zipper to sit really tight on your garment, then you can use a piece of paper and mark the little bumps on the backside of your garment, so you get the exact space between each stich in your garment.

You can then use this marked paper to transfer the spaces to the side of the zipper.
These markers can then be used to place the preparing stiches in the next step very precisely.


In my opinion this makes especially sense when you've used thicker yarn and the space between the bumps is relatively big, so you can make your "sewing-on-stiches" on the zipper respectively large.




If you've been using finer yarn, like I did for the sweater project, you may want to consider

Option 2:

In order to sew the zipper properly to your garment, you have to add some stiches on the side of the zipper.
If you have one of those crochet hooks with a sharp tip, you can use it to go through the fabric on the side and pull up a loop.
I don't have one of those hooks, so I simply used a darning needle to make a little hole in the fabric and then used a normal small crochet hook to pull up a loop. With a little space bewteen (or at your next mark, if you're using option 1), simply go through the fabric again and pull up another loop. Make sure this loop goes through your first one, like you can see in the picture.
What I did (and what I mean by calling it "option 2") is to just make small stiches along the side of the zipper. I did not especially mark them because the space between the stiches is so small. This will not be a problem as you will see later. Simply try to keep the spaces between your loops equally big or small and just use a space that approximately corresponds to the space between the bumps on the backside of your garment. So, not too big and not too small. "Lagom" as we say in Sweden, which means "just right" ;)


Do this a along the side of the zipper.

And of course on the other side, too! ;)








Next step:

Now pin the zipper in place on your project. Pin outside the chain of loops.












If  everything is pinned, as you want it to be, start sewing!

Always go through the whole loop with the needle (see picture) and then through the bump/stich that's next to the loop. (just flip the side over a bit and you can see it)
If you have to skip a bump sometimes, that's fine! Just make sure you always use the one that's right next to the loop at the zipper.
Because you pinned the zipper nicely in place, you don't have to worry about the garment going out of shape or being displaced after sewing on the zipper.




If you marked every single bump in the first step, you can skip the pinning and just sew the stiches one by one, until all stiches are sewn. Then sew the other side of the zipper.

That's it!

This is what it looks like when your zipper is ready. Nice! :)

This is the backside. Not much to see here, only the stiches made by pulling up loops in the first step.











I hope you like this tutorial and maybe are no longer afraid of installing zippers to knitted garments! :)

Have a great week!!
Love,
Stefanie